Gallery of Old Masters

 

Gallery of Old Masters

The Old Masters Gallery (German: Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister; or Dresden Art Gallery) houses an exceptional collection of approximately 750 old master paintings purchased in the 18th century by Saxon rulers of the Albertine Wettin line. The Dresden State Art Collections now house it.The gallery is located in the Zwinger Palace at Theater Square.


Wettin's Collection
Enfilade of the Gallery's halls. The hall with the "Sistine Madonna" is in the background.
The fine arts cabinet (Kunstkammer), founded in 1560, laid the groundwork for the world-famous collection, which included paintings by Italian and Flemish masters of painting alongside natural phenomena, handicrafts, and various curiosities. Elector August II the Strong (1670-1733), a connoisseur of the arts who rebuilt Dresden's entire center, began to systematically collect the works of the old masters. An inventory of the collection of paintings, separate from the Kunstkamera, was conducted in 1722. The elector ordered that he be displayed by the court nobility in the rebuilt The construction of the court stables. In addition to paintings, the Saxon Electors' collection included a one-of-a-kind porcelain collection, an intriguing collection of scientific instruments, and an engraving cabinet, the oldest collection of graphics in Central Europe . Augustus III inherited his father's passion for collecting works of art. He could afford very expensive purchases, like a parent, with proceeds from the treasury of the vast Polish-Lithuanian state, whose elective throne he occupied. He chose only masterpieces for acquisition, relying on the wise advice of Algarotti. The Cranachs' Hall
August III purchased 268 paintings from the Wallenstein collection, including "At the Matchmaker" by Jan Vermeer of Delft, in 1741. They were soon followed by numerous works from the royal gallery in Prague, and in 1745 - "one hundred best paintings" from the impoverished Duke of Modena's collection, among which were works by Correggio, Velazquez, and Titian. The gallery's composition reflected the tastes of the European Enlightenment aristocracy. Raphael was regarded as the "king of artists" at the time, and his best easel work was the "Sistine Madonna ". This canvas was brought to Piacenza from the church of San Sixto.


Zwinger construction
The outbreak of the Seven Years' War in 1756, and the Wettins' loss of control of Poland, put an end to Dresden's rise as Florence-on-the-Elbe. Only a century later, the city regained its strength, and the city council decided to construct a museum. Despite the fact that a different location was chosen for construction, Gottfried Semper, director of the Dresden State Construction School, proposed a neo- Renaissance art palace enclosing the Theater Square. The building's construction began in 1847, and it was completed in 1855. It was decided in 1931 to leave only the works of old masters.


The twentieth-century gallery
The Dresden Art Gallery was built in 1960.
Meanwhile, the tragic years for Dresden's cultural life were approaching. The Nazis confiscated and destroyed numerous works from the collection, including paintings by German Expressionists, in 1937. Dresden was bombed during WWII, with particularly heavy bombing in February 1945, when the city was nearly completely destroyed. Although a significant portion of the work was safely hidden in mines from air raids, the bombing affected over 300 works. The Semper Gallery's structure was also severely damaged. A significant portion of the collection discovered in the mines was removed from Dresden as trophies by Soviet troops in 1945. The fate of the collection's 450 paintings is unknown. For ten years, paintings from Dresden that had been damaged by mine dampness were restored and stored at the Pushkin Museum im. Pushkin. At the request of N. S. Khrushchev, 1240 paintings were returned to Dresden during a visit by a USSR government delegation to the German Democratic Republic in 1955 . Part of Semper's gallery was reopened in 1956, and by 1960, the entire structure had been restored, and the city once again saw the best works of painting. Unlike many other museums, the Dresden Gallery avoids change and preserves the past.

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